Getting a new laptop and have questions

Narrator has improved so much compared to what you're used to.

It will even tell you, if you want to use a screen reader in setup, press windows control and enter.

I use dropbox for my files and folders. It's a bit pricy at, I about 90 something pounds a year but it's worth it.

You will also need to buy an external hard drive, i'd recommend doing that even if you don't use dropbox. Personally I like seegate because of their size.

You will have to reconfigure your settings once you've installed windows 11, that might take a bit of time to do if you're not used to it but if you press windows plus x and arrow through the items there, you'll find the settings option, press enter on that and type what you're looking for.

If you need anymore help, feel free to ask and i'll do my best.

Like Brad said, windows is quite accessible these days. You will have no problems setting up, registering, updating, etc. your computer right out of the box. You can find moderately powerful laptops for dirt cheap these days as well. The links below may be useful to you. The first one is the laptop I currently use, as of March of this year. The second link is a thread from July of this year, that may have some helpful information for you to peruse.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BY3PGDZR/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1

https://www.applevis.com/forum/windows/laptop-suggestions

Narrator is easy to use, but it is nowhere near as, robust, as either JAWS or NVDA. It will get you through initial setup of your PC, and is in fact great for navigating the Desktop on its own. Not to mention the Microsoft Neural voices are absolutely phenomenal.

For serious use on the other hand, you will want JAWS or NVDA. I am a little biased here, as I am a NVDA user.

Hi,

You should be able to back up your documents with an external harddrive/SSD depending on budget. I definitely don't find the Windows way as intuitive as Time Machine on Mac, so I just copied and pasted as much as I could over. Not the most efficient and I'm sure there's a better solution.

You can definitely set up Windows if you're blind, it just requires using Narrator. But the set up menu is completely accessible, it's just the bios which isn't (but you shouldn't need to use that anyway).

If you actively use OneDrive, then backing up and restoring files is, well not as intuitive as Apple, but it is efficient enough for the casual PC user.

I am against backing up your settings in Windows. You're not only backing up the Windows, you are also backing up bugs and problems. So start fresh with your games and files only.
Most Windows laptops come with preinstall Windows, so that's going to ease things for you to set it up yourself.
If you are into macs, M1 and M2 are hugely discounted these days.

what laptop are you planning on getting, and what would your use case be like. What laptop do you currently have, what do you do on it?

hey , I recommend if you’re making music to use a macOS device. macOS a supremely better compared to windows when it comes to making music. If you’re willing to try a desktop, a Mac mini with 16 GB of ram and I think 256 GB or 512 GB is about 500 or 600, possibly more Australian dollars where I live. I don’t know where it would be where you’re at but you know.

Not to start the whole MacOS vs Windows thing up again, but honestly, Windows isn't that bad for music. I think Mac is more intuitive for me, but that's just because I got started with it and have a lot more experience with it. I'm sure if Windows were my only option, I probably would find that a lot more intuitive than the Mac way. Driver issues aren't really a thing anymore, and unless you need 100% reliability, you're not going to see that many issues, and I don't think you're a professional, so you probably don't need 100% reliability.

reasons why I prefer Mac

Mac is better when it comes to battery life.. Windows is only getting better now.

Mak speakers are better? I’m actually not as sure about this as I’ve never had a Windows laptop with good speakers, but my MacBook Air and one has brilliant speakers.

Mack keyboards are brilliant, at least for me.

and I’ve never really had any issues with VoiceOver

reasons why I prefer windows

Windows doesn’t have, ““ app name ““ not responding.

Windows is better if you’re a gamer

Microsoft Office is easier to navigate around on windows

You have more choices regarding screen reader, magnification or speech on windows

in between

both are responsive.

Windows 11 is extremely bloated, for most devices.

Text editing is better on windows.

You have more diverse options on windows

If you have other devices with Apple,

Both macOS and windows are accessible to set up and reset.

Narrator will help you setup Windows. You can operate all Microsoft apps with Narrator. Any 3rd party app might strugle with narrator. That's where Jaws or NVDA comes in. Windows on it's own is fully accessible out of the box.
Command keys are mostly similar accross NVDA and Narrator. No interacting with objects, no complicated structures, just arrow keys and tabbing around. Jaws is slightly advance.
For backup, Microsoft will backup most of the basic settings through Onedrive and allow you to restore during the setup process. For files, I suggest copying them to an external drive and manually moving them over to new laptop. Most of audio games you might be playing will require manual migration of the files.
A backup software might come handy, but I've never used it myself. I keep an external portable SSD to backup things manually.
Don't forget to copy your Jaws license keys. That goes for most licensed software. As long as old one gets deactivated, you can reuse those licenses on the new machine.
Welcome to the Windows side. Intuitive to learn, Superior text editing, superior navigation, superior web browsing, wider selection of software and games, wider selection of screen-readers!

I highly recommend Ninite for installing NVDA and other essentials, it's a tiny file that will install a selection of software. You go to ninite.com, check all the boxes you want with NVDA being on there as NV Access for some reason. You can put it on a USB drive ready or run it on the same system, just remember you need internet access for it to download the software. It does it all in the background without any of the boxes asking what kind of install you want, and it always downloads the latest version. For most software other than NVDA it even updates existing software so you can keep the same file around and reuse it to update everything.

NVDA is created by the folks at NVACCESS.ORG.

But there's a screen reader page: https://ninite.com/accessible

This page has apps that work with screen readers.

ninite is honestly amazing.

There's also one called chocolatey, it's commandline bassed though and is a bit trickier to use but it does have more packages.

The downside is they're not updated to the latest version all the time.

I'm very aware NV Access make NVDA, it just doesn't make sense to me why they name the foundation not the software. It's like putting Mozilla instead of Firefox or Microsoft instead of Edge.

Edit: For some reason the accessible software page doesn't include FoxIt PDF reader so bear in mind there may be options missing, or software may become inaccessible due to updates and not be removed. I also see no reason not to include CCleaner or Revo.

My personal strategy is to back up my Documents, Downloads, Favorites, and Music folders to an external hard drive; and set up the computer without restoring any Windows settings. When the new computer is up and running, I copy the contents of each folder from the external drive to the appropriate location on the new system.

If you have a Microsoft account and if you have signed into Windows using it, settings are backed up automatically. For files, applications and folders you will have to use an external drive to back up. Since most of us hate Microsoft so much, we don't sign into Windows using a Microsoft account, we instead use a local account

These days it's a tough choice on selecting a laptop you might get the cake but not be able to eat it. I honestly hate the ones that come with 8GB RAM; but they are mostly in the market. 32GB RAM with a i7 Gen 3 processor and 500GB storage drive should get you through the day. Honestly avoid those multimedia laptops which have the FN key, you will need spiderman fingers to press key combinations which require the Function keys

Just press Win+r, type CMD and enter, then type: Winget install NVDA
Yes, Windows has builtin command line package manager, it's called Winget.
But honestly, even I forget to use it.

Well if you are planning to get one, today is the day if you are in the US for Syber Monday.